William Bowman (1799-1874)
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~yewenyi/4/22651.html http://yewenyi.net/FH/4/22651.html |long_name=William Bowman |birth_year=1799 |birth_month=12 |birth_day=11 |birth_locality=Sydney |birth_nation-subdiv1=New South Wales |birth_nation=Australia |birth_notes=various sources claim that he was born in 1800 |death_year=1874 |death_month=12 |death_day=11 |death_locality=Richmond, New South Wales |death_nation-subdiv1=New South Wales |death_nation=Australia |death_sources=BOWMAN.—December 11, at Richmond, William Bowman, Esq., J.P., aged 75 years. Funeral on Monday, at noon. :: |ifmarried-g2=true |wedding2_year=1837 |wedding2_month=10 |wedding2_day=7 |wedding2_locality=North Shields |wedding2_county=Northumberland |wedding2_nation-subdiv1=England |wedding2_nation=United Kingdom |globals= }} Biography Profile (1856) THE NEW PARLIAMENT. No. 25.—WILLIAM BOWMAN. THE member for the Cumberland Boroughs appears in the new Assembly, with two others, Mr. Cowper and Mr. Murray, as the only remaining men from the first election under free institutions, in 1843. On that occasion, he was elected by the same constituency; after a hard contest with Mr. Robert Fitzgerald. Mr. William Bowman is a " son of the soil," and is now fifty five years of age, having boon born in Sydney on the 11th of December, 1800. His father, Mr. John Bowman, was a native of East Lothian, Sootland, and emigrated to New South Wales in 1798. The late Mr. Bowman obtained from the Government a grant of one hundred acres of land, which he selected at Richmond. The family settled upon this property, which they at once commenced cultivating. In the year 1806, and again in 1809, the river Hawksbury was so heavily flooded, that the whole of their crops and live stock were destroyed ; and owing to these reverses of fortune, and the unfavourable circumstances of the colony at the time, the subject of this notice enjoyed none of the advantages of education in his early boyhood. From some time in 1811 till February, 1813, he was kept at the public school at Windsor, under the care of the Rev. Robert Cartwright, now of Gunning, after which he returned home to assist his father in his farming operations. Mr. Bowman, senior, died in December, 1825, and his widow in November of the following year ; for several years afterwards Mr. William Bowman continued actively employing himself in the agricultural and grazing concerns of tho Richmond property. Mr. Bowman had always felt a strong desire to visit Europe—a desire, however, which for a long time he was prevented from gratifying by the pressing engagements of daily life—and in May, 1836, he left the colony for England. He travelled through the greater part of England and Scotland, and visited Paris. During his stay in the mother-country, Mr. Bowman engaged and sent out to the colony upwards of forty labourers with their families. He returned to the colony in 1838, since which time he has still resided on his own estate at Richmond. In the year 1840, Mr. Bowman was appointed a magistrate of the territory by the late Sir George Gipps. He joined in the early efforts to obtain an elective Legislature ; he opposed the revival of transportation at a later period, and was a member of the Australasian League. In the Legislature, where he has always sat for the Cumberland Boroughs, with the exception of a short period in 1851 and 1852, Mr. Bowman generally voted with Mr. Wentworth. He gave an unqualified support to the Constitution Bill. In October, 1837, Mr. Bowman married, at North Shields, Elizabeth, daughter of Baxter Arthur, Esq. : his only child, a son, died in infancy. Besides his property at Richmond, which has been considerably increased by purchases, Mr. Bowman has rather largely engaged in pastoral pursuits in the counties of Wellington and Bligh. In private life he is generally and deservedly respected. :: Notes Ancestral File and the AWT sources call him "William Macarthur Bowman", though there is no documentary or genealogical support for this. He may have been confused with the unrelated William Macarthur Bowman (1831-1878). __SHOWFACTBOX__ Category:Ancestry from Scotland Category:Ancestry from England Category:Resided in New South Wales Category:Members of the New South Wales Legislative Council Category:Members of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly